Should JEE Advanced Be Cancelled For IIT Admissions This Year?

IIIT Hyderabad Director PJ Narayanan & FIIT JEE Director Trikha speak on whether JEE Advanced should be cancelled.

(Photo: Kamran Akhter/The Quint)

Video Editor: Rahul Sanpui

Should JEE Advanced 2020 be cancelled for this year only? Should admissions to IITs, NITs and CFTIs be held on the basis of the JEE 2020 Main scores alone this year?

Can the JEE Main exam be modified, to test the skill sets that are put to perusal in JEE Advanced?

The Quint spoke to PJ Narayanan, Director of IIIT Hyderabad and RL Trikha, Director of FIIT JEE Group, to understand what they think about the issue.

Should JEE Advanced be Cancelled?

• PJ Narayanan, Director, IIIT, Hyderabad: “We are having an extraordinary year with academics affected very badly with this pandemic. And those who are aspiring for IITs have to get a good rank in the JEE Advanced exam, and for that they have to first write the JEE Main exam, which means there’re a lot of exams that they are waiting for and a lot of stress. So, my suggestion is that for this year and this year alone, use the JEE Main exam as the qualifier, as the admission criteria for IITs also. Which means not conducting the JEE Advanced exam. My contention is that the top 10,000 ranks in JEE Main and the top 10,000 ranks in JEE Advanced will be the same set of students.”

• RL Trikha, Director, FIIT JEE Group: “In case the situation is controlled soon, then maybe let us say, by 15 June, both exams (JEE Main & JEE Advanced) can be conducted; in case it gets extraordinarily delayed, then you know, I am more worried about JEE Main, because even for JEE Main the board exam is necessary. But, in case it is not possible and there is too much pressure, then (we need to have just) one examination. They will have to redesign the format and will have to, in this particular case, meet an extraordinary exigency. They may go for even one exam (JEE Main) provided their committee (JEE) agrees to it.”

If JEE Advanced is Cancelled, Should JEE Main be Modified?

• Narayanan: “The first edition of JEE Main was held in January, and almost all the students wrote that, but they all have a chance to write it again and the system will report the best of the two scores. And there may be a few who did not write it in January and are waiting only for the April test. So, JEE Main has been announced as per a particular pattern, and half of it has been conducted... so, the option of changing that does not exist.”

• Trikha: “JEE Advanced is the real exam which IITs conduct. Whereas JEE Main is basically meant for first stage screening for IITs and then for NITs and other government institutes, like CFTIs. So, maybe, they tune the level to IIT Advanced. And even the multiple-choice questions, they can make it of a little bit higher level. Problem is that the students who appear for JEE Main, they may not have that kind of deep analytical skills and deep conceptual understanding to solve such kind of problems. So, maybe a little compromise will have to be made.”

Can Cancelling JEE Advanced Speed Up Admission Process?

• Narayanan: “Instead of 14-15 weeks after the JEE Main exam... classes starting after 14-15 weeks could be cut short by another four weeks or five weeks, if the JEE Advanced step is removed. And this is not only for IIT admissions. Because IITs are the most sought-after institutions, until the IIT admissions takes place, admission to NITs, IIITs and then other private engineering and government engineering colleges do not actually happen. So, there is a cascade of dependency, from the IIT list to all the way down. Which means you have the opportunity to save four to five weeks of delay in start of academics, if we do this step.”

Will Students Have Enough Time to Prepare for JEE Advanced?

• Trikha “JEE Advanced preparations do not start after JEE main. JEE Advanced preparations, as a matter of fact, start for students who target JEE Advanced right in class 10 or maybe, in class 11. So, it is not like only one month is there for preparation of JEE Advanced. For those who are serious about appearing in JEE Advanced, JEE Main is only a step.”